The present invention is with respect to a fishing rod having at least one guide or guide eye for a fishing line, and with respect to a process for producing such line guides on fishing rods.
Line guiding eyes as used in the prior art may have two axially running feet which are fixed by winding threads round the feet and the rod. A shortcoming with such an eye system is that a certain length of the rod is made stiffer by the guide eye on it and is, for this reason, not so readily bent as its other parts, such a rod not having the desired properties of, for example, a fly fishing rod and the rod is less to be desired because it does not have the right feel, in view of the stiffer parts, there is no smooth and even suppleness of the rods, this being more specially serious in the case of glass fiber rods.
Furthermore, guide eyes have been produced seated in a ring-like support having a single axial tailpiece for fixing it. Although in the case of this way of fixing the eyes, the length of the part of the rod made stiffer by fixing the guide eye is very much shorter than in the case of fixing using two feet, a system with only one foot has the shortcoming that the support may readily be bent so that the look of the rod is less good and furthermore there will be material fatigue of the support, which may be broken on use.
In a further suggestion made in the prior art, the guide eyes are to be fixed in position on the fishing rod by a pipe-like connection part slipped onto the rod and fixed in position by an adhesive which is melted for producing the joint. Such supports are generally complex to make, because the pipe-like part has to match the diameter of the rod at the position where the eye is to be produced. The connection between the eye and pipe-like part may be bent if not handled carefully and furthermore they are heavy and the adhesive damps vibrations to be conducted along the rod. Lastly, guide eyes have been produced in the prior art having an inner part of a very abrasion-resistant material such as ceramic material, sapphire or silicon carbide for stopping wear by the fishing line as it is pulled through the eyes.